The 'Burbs

My name is Cathy and I live in the Suburbs. I was thinking the other day how great it is to say that. I am not a city person. I like to go to the city but couldn't live there. Oh, and for me even though I don't live there anymore, the city refers to San Francisco. It probably always will like I am sure to some people the city will always mean New York City or Boston but to me I left my heart in CA so that will be the city always. Okay, enough babbling.

I am also not a country girl. I don't do dirt, bugs or wildlife. I have been camping one time when I was in Blue birds when I was like 10 and we slept outside under a tarp and it rained all night. It was awful. I don't like camping. I want running water, indoor plumbing and a real bed. Yes I am aware that I somehow went from the young girl who walked barefoot everywhere and climbed trees to an adult who is kind of a girly girl who likes to get her nails done and wear make-up.

I am a product of the suburbs. I grew up in the suburbs my whole life so I don't know anything else. I did visit my grandparents on their farm and churned butter once but that really wasn't my cup of tea and the traffic alone in most major cities would drive me insane.

The suburbs give you the best of both. At least mine does as it is pretty quiet yet close enough to a major city that I can go shopping, see Phantom of the Opera, or go to just about any chain restaurant that you can name.

I couldn't imagine a better place to raise my children and in that was a major deciding factor in us moving to WI in the first place. I was fortunate enough in CA to go to private school until 8th grade and then off to public school. I loved high school or at least what I got out of it which was a lot of great memories and my BFF (best friend forever) but I also saw a lot of scary stuff. I saw a huge fight that resulted in my principal getting punched and my vice principal breaking his finger all while trying to stop a fight involving broken bottles. There were gangs and drugs and all sorts of crazy stuff. I am no naive to think that those things don't exist here as I know they do but we live in a smaller city with a MUCH better school system than CA so I feel comfort in that.

With living in the 'burbs comes responsibility at least in our neighborhood it does. We have rules as to things we must do and things we cannot do. We have to have building plans for fences and decks approved and we have to have 5 evergreen shrubs and a tree (maple,oak, pine,etc) on our property. We have no plans for a fence and our deck is done so that isn't an issue. We have plants that meet the requirements. We have a hard time getting them to live past 1 winter but we try which is huge for me as I HATE gardening. Back to the dirt, bugs thing again.

It also brings a sense of worry in terms of will we have good neighbors (which we have AWESOME ones), will our grass look nice all summer, will our flowers bloom and will our dogs barking bother the neighbors. We are very fortunate to live where we live with the people we live with as we know it could be so much worse. Now, if only I could get my one neighbor to keep her dog from barking out the window at me and mow her lawn more than once every 3-4 weeks that would be awesome.